I push the hair from my face, try to work saliva on to my dry tongue. The flat smells pungently of coffee. Lawrence never eats breakfast, just caffeinates until midday.
‘Not in that way.’
‘Oh,’ he says pointedly. ‘My bad.’
He has a right to be prickly, I guess. I was on top of him not six hours ago.
I reach out and touch his face – to reassure him or apologise, perhaps both. ‘I was dreaming about the pill.’
In the slash of daylight filtering between the curtains, his profile is all clean edges and sharp lines. Sometimes, from a certain angle, I think Lawrence looks almost identical to Josh. But he is much more preened and precisely put-together, even at this hour of the morning.
The sliver of sky I can see is a creamy, wistful blue. It carries the light, dry quality of winter evaporating.
Lawrence sighs. ‘Okay, don’t freak out when I say this.’
‘I’ll try.’
He rubs his face. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking. What if that pill doesn’t work, and Josh decides he wants you back?’
I feel touched and guilty and caught off-guard, all at once.
I shuffle into a sitting position. ‘Decides? Like, I wouldn’t get a say?’
‘Sorry. No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just...’ And then he trails off, and looks unsure of himself, which for Lawrence is rare.
‘What?’ I say gently.
‘You’re definitely over him?’ He reaches out, draws a finger along my bare clavicle. ‘Josh, I mean.’
Lawrence is just not the kind of guy who usually needs reassurance on anything. Work, life, sex – you could attack his confidence with a jackhammer on all fronts and fail to produce a single crack.
But then I remember that, in reality, we hardly know each other. So perhaps he’s not as infallible as he first appears.
‘Do you think I’d be with you if I weren’t?’ I say softly.
‘I don’t know. We did agree this would be a no-strings kind of deal.’
It’s been three months now, but we are still fond of reminding each other that we’re just having fun. And it is fun, when we sneak breathily back here to have sex in our lunch hour, or when he sends me deliciously inappropriate emails at work, or when he gives me five minutes’ notice for a night out that ends up with us walking home together at dawn, arms wound around each other, pausing to kiss as the streetlights blink off.
I attended a self-improvement seminar at work last week, and it struck me that being with Lawrence does feel a bit like pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Because he is the opposite of me, really – Type A and impulsive and ever so slightly ruthless. He doesn’t seem to care too much if people like him or not. Only yesterday I overheard a colleague saying about him,I refuse to work another day with that absolute weapon.
So this whole thing does feel slightly audacious on my part. But that is also what makes it – for now – feel right.
I lean forward and kiss him. I am starting to discover, it seems, that Lawrence has layers.
‘This neediness is kind of cute, you know.’
He breaks into a smile. ‘Fuck off,’ he says, laughing, pretending to push me away.
‘I’m serious,’ I say, going in for another kiss. ‘I like this side of you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
He fixes his green eyes on mine. ‘Well, then, I should probably tell you... I think I’m falling for you, Rachel Foster.’
33.
